Author Archives: barczablog

Numbers game

Posted on July 12, 2012 by barczablog

Is opera a numbers game?  It depends who you ask. Statistics can describe aspects of any art form.  For example: Guernica is 3.49 meters by 7.76 meters (more than 11 feet by over 25 feet) Syberberg’s film Our Hitler is over 7 hours … Continue reading →

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Ten greatest

Posted on July 9, 2012 by barczablog

Limelight magazine supposedly polled “modern day masters” of the piano, to identify the ten greatest pianists of all time. Here’s their list of ten: 1. Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) 2. Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989) 3. Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) 4. Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) … Continue reading →

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Goon

Posted on July 8, 2012 by barczablog

If you were to ask a Canadian to name the best hockey film, they’d have a fairly short list to work with.  Where baseball has generated a fairly long list of films, some sentimental, some colourful, portraying various aspects of … Continue reading →

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Goodyear—Beethoven I

Posted on July 7, 2012 by barczablog

To begin the voyage through Stewart Goodyear’s set on Marquis of the complete Piano Sonatas of Beethoven, I took two CDs, and listened to each one multiple times.  While I seem to be jumping in at either end (CD #1 … Continue reading →

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Wakowski Bros

Posted on July 6, 2012 by barczablog

It’s July in Toronto, which means it’s time for the Fringe Festival, the grand-daddy of them all. Whether we’re talking about Summmerworks, Rhubarb, The Fringe, or one of the others (forgotten by my heat-addled brain) the premise is largely the … Continue reading →

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Two Iconoclasts

Posted on July 4, 2012 by barczablog

Canada became a country July 1st 1867: one hundred forty-five years ago.  July 1st is a day to count one’s blessings, to celebrate a compassionate and gentle country, a haven for so many wonderful people, among them great artists. I’m … Continue reading →

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Verdi and Wagner

Posted on July 2, 2012 by barczablog

Is it early to be talking about the 2013 bicentennial of Giuseppe Verdi & Richard Wagner? Not when papers to be presented at conferences next year are already being proposed. Both composers were born in 1813. Let’s get to the … Continue reading →

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Summer

Posted on June 30, 2012 by barczablog

When did music begin to imitate its subject, begin to be ambitious about signifying?  Is Mozart’s gentle rococo tuba mirum (so understated compared to Verdi’s dies irae or Mahler’s resurrection in his 2nd Symphony) an attempt to show us what … Continue reading →

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PREMIERES

Posted on June 28, 2012 by barczablog

Whatever you think of the music on PREMIERES – violinist Conrad Chow’s CD of original musical compositions for violin with different groupings of accompanying instruments— the concept seems to be original. My eyebrows went up when I heard that a … Continue reading →

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Jean Cox

Posted on June 27, 2012 by barczablog

I’ve been thinking about Jean Cox. Cox was a great American heldentenor, who died on Sunday.  By coincidence it’s the same day that Franz Crass passed, and not many weeks after the death of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I am pondering the … Continue reading →

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